Brewers 4, Cardinals 3: Milwaukee makes a statement, sweeping the formerly-first-place Cardinals. Shaun Marcum pitched seven strong innings and the Brewers came back from being down 3-0 after five and a half innings to taking the lead after six. The Brewers are the hottest team this side of Boston, methinks. Speaking of them …

Red Sox 14, Blue Jays 1: Remember those Blue Jays truthers hanging out in the comments section who got on everyone’s case a month or so ago when people were ranking the Sox higher than the Jays even though the Jays had a better record? Yeah, well, truth your way out of a 35-6 three-game series. At home.

Braves 4, Astros 1: Tommy Hanson stuck out 14 guys in seven innings, and Braves pitchers struck out 17 in all. Which is way less shocking than the fact that Dan Uggla went 2 for 3 with a homer, a walk and a couple driven in. That’s six straight wins for the Braves. Houston has lost four straight and eight of nine.

Mets 7, Pirates 0: Chris Capuano with seven shutout innings, three hits allowed. Jose Reyes is absolutely on fire. He already had an OPS over 1.000 for June coming in to this game and went 3 for 5 with an RBI and two runs scored.

Twins 6, Rangers 1: Francisco Liriano had a no-hitter going into the eighth. Too bad he didn’t get it, because I’d have to imagine that he’d easily be the worst pitcher to have two no-hitters in a season. Anyway, they needed those blanks from Liriano at least through the seventh before the Twins broke through for five runs, taking the pressure off.

White Sox 5, Athletics 3: The A’s have a record in June that even the Cubs and Indians can laugh at, and have lost 12 of 13 overall. Adam Dunn with a three-run homer.

Rays 9, Orioles 6: Brian Matusz had nothing out of the gate and only lasted an inning and a third. That left it to Alfredo Simon and the rest of the O’s pen to keep it close, but they … didn’t. Not that the bats didn’t try to help. Back to back homers for Adam Jones and Vlad Guerrero. The Rays were just on base all day, though, and you’re not going to make any headway against ‘em when that happens.

Nationals 2, Padres 0: A Petco special, scoreless until the ninth when the Nats strung a couple together. Jordan Zimmermann deserved the win after striking out ten in seven shutout innings, but that’s not how it turned out. Tim Stauffer deserved a better fate too.

Royals 9, Angels 0: A totally different Vin Mazzaro than we saw the last couple of times out: seven shutout innings. Not epic shutout innings, mind you — he walked five and didn’t strike anyone out — but the Royals defense turned a bunch of double plays behind him, and that will cure a lot of ills.

Giants 4, Reds 2: Three hits and two runs driven in for Aubrey Huff as the Giants come from behind. The most notable thing about this game: watching the views from the blimp and wondering why in the hell I live in Ohio instead of California.

The Yankees continued to rebound from what can only be described as a poor performance a few days back against the Red Sox. Pitching and offense were on display Sunday for the Yankees. I give them a 9 out of 10 for their Sunday performance.

A side note it will be interesting to see Craig’s Power Rankings this week when they come out. My rather inexperienced Top 5 are: 1) Red Sox ; 2) Phillies ; 3) Brewers ; 4) Yankees and 5) Giants. I wonder how close I will be when someone who actually knows what they’re doing publishes their “official” list. As always, this has been just my opinion. Enjoy.

Ari, my friend while I certainly do appreciate those kind words however rare they are when we converse. I figured since Craig gets paid for his opinions here (an assumption on my part) I figured that kind of makes his list “official” at least to may way of thinking. But thank you anyway.

Sometimes I wish Jose Bautista was Vincent Vega and I was Mia Wallace, and that he would stab me in the heart with his long, thin hypodermic needle full of Dominican love. On the days when I’m feeling frisky, I’m Marcellus Wallace and Jose is Zed

I like you as Jules cleaning stuff out of your hair from blowing dudes “brains” out in the back seat. I’ll let the real Cur decide of course. He may like you as Marcellus in the basement, With no KY. Kinda like a sicker more warped version of “Clue”.

I usually discuss the Phillies, but there’s not much to say. They’re back, Utley is hitting, and all is well in sunny Philadelphia.

I am here to admit I was 100% wrong about the 2011 Red Sox this weekend. Previously, this team would follow up a big sweep of the Yankers by going to Toronto and losing 2 of 3. Not only did they sweep the Blue Jays…they annihilated them. Obliterated them. Terminated them. I have ESPN text alerts for Phillies, Yankers, and Red Sox scoring and 3,6,9. Every time I looked, it was A-Gone knocking someone in, Big Papi hitting a bomb, and Pedroia, who I thought was having surgery, scoring. Amazing…I was completely 100% wrong about the 2011 version of the Red Sox.

But on the other hand, I was 100% right about the Yankers…they beat he Indians almost as bad as the Red Sox beat the Blue Jays. They won’t be going away quietly, even though they lost their second best pitcher to the DL. With that offense, you will never be able to count out the evil empire, as much as I would love to do so.

Yes…. And the only reason I’d put the Phills up on top of the RS is because I’m pretty sure the Phills pitching could do more to stifle the bats of Boston than the other way around. Of course, we will find out for sure pretty soon too. Which I wait for not too patiently. Is it just me or is the Boston / Philly series extra exciting?

Considering that the Red Sox are my second favorite team, and that I go to all three games every year, this is going to be awesome. It was easy when they never played each other, but ever since interleague play, I chose the Phillies and had to let my Red Sox fandom fade. Of course, I believe the Red Sox will need the games more than the Phillies because I don’t think the Braves or Marlins are anywhere close to the Yankees and Rays.

Really? Look at the Sox records against Halladay and Lee….and this team is better than those were. I’d say Lester and Beckett are no worse than an even match with the Phillies aces, and I’d take young Buchholtz over old Oswalt any day. You’re whistling in the dark.

We will see. Phillies have by far the better pitching staff. Better BP too.That’s all I’m saying….

Chris Fiorentino - Jun 13, 2011 at 12:35 PM

Jack, you are out of your frigging mind if you would say that Halladay and Lee are “no worse than even” with Beckett and Lester. Puh-leeze. And you forgot about the guy pitching the best on the staff, Hamels. Oswalt vs Lackey is not even close. I’ll take the Phillies staff every day of the week and twice on Sunday and anybody who wouldn’t is farting in the wind eating too many beans from Beantown.

spindervish - Jun 13, 2011 at 1:47 PM

None of Beckett, Lester or Lee are in Halladay’s class. And I’d have to admit the trio of Doc-Lee-Hamels is probably better than Beckett-Lester-Buchholz, though not by as much as some of you think.

More importantly though, this idea that the Phils’ pitching would have an easier time shutting down the Boston offense than vice-versa seems patently absurd. The Boston offense is a fucking machine…last I checked all you Philly cats were constantly whining about your underperforming O. Well, maybe not all of you…but those who were have been pretty loud about it. Regardless…Boston has Philly beat on offense, and it’s not really particularly close, even if Howard and Utley were playing all the way up to their abilities.

yankeesfanlen - Jun 13, 2011 at 8:51 AM

Now, let’s ALL play- Sway the Judge.This may be as big as All Star voting.
Agree with UYF and Chris in principle.
1.Red Sox
2.Phillies
3.Yankees
4.Brewers
5 Cards
Bonus fun tonight- the wraparound and Yankees runaround can continue.
Nine runs scored without a homer yesterday- oh, that right, my two veteran favorites each hads two hits instead of their usual zero, no rallies destroyed in the making odf this game.

My friend, it would seem that all 3 of us agree on top 4 although not in the same order. Apparently my choice of the Giants at #5 is not the prevailing opinion. Like I said above I can live with 4 out of 5. Good to see we are in agreement otherwise, my friend. BTW, this evening the Yankees get to hopefully pick up one of the two games they have in hand on the Red Sox. Sweeping a team 4 in a row is tough though. Hopefully the Yankees can come through. And hopefully good AJ shows up tonight, if not good AJ at least let it be decent AJ.

We haven’t gotten decent AJ much since we picked him up from the Blue Jays. It’s usually either Good AJ or Evil AJ. Sometimes they both even show up in the same game. Maybe the AJ in the middle is beginning to be phased out by the other too.

cur68 - Jun 13, 2011 at 9:15 AM

The Jays do rank higher than the Sox…at sucking. Absolutely no patience at the plate, no command of the strike zone and no luck in the field. Hell even the umpires think they’re so bad they ring them up after only 2 strikes.

The Sox though, well they are who I expected they’d be; dominant. Early on I spent a small amount of time trying to calm some commenters down who were panicking about how awful the Sox were. I think I said they’d get better, Papelbon was still a lights out closer, Papi was hitting and Crawford was going to be the guy he’s always been, or some such. To be fair I also said Vernon Wells and John Buck were pretty good too, so I’m not exactly Miz Cleo. It’s nice when every once in a while I get to be right, if only a little right. In a way I’m glad the Sox are doing well, though I wish they’d go blow out the someone else’s team and not my poor beleaguered Beavermen. The division isn’t all Yankees and the Ray’s have to really claw for it if they want to be in to the playoffs.

I don’t recall ever ranking the Jays higher than the Sox but meh, if I did, then what of that? It was likely true back then. It certainly isn’t true now. I’d rank a taxidermically stuffed beaver higher than the Beavermen at the moment.

The way the Jays stunk out the joint over the weekend, it might have been easier if the umps were ringing them up after the first strike. At least the games would end sooner, and this weekend could be filed under F, as in forget about it.

Speaking of sucking, something splattered real hard to be the shep…no, pardon me, wrong train of thought (excess of calcified plaque on the dendrites again).

Try again: Something splattered real hard against the strange attractor yesterday afternoon. Pathological examination (ie, as in the ac of examinationt itself was pathological, since any idiot could have just read the uniforms) revealed traces of collagen with fin rot and we must conclude that that mess dripping off the sides of the attractor was none other than the Feesh. By this morning, you already had to chase the hungry cats away from the carrion hypothetical construct that was Scrooge McLoria and the Chihuahua’s incomprehensible twenty-five million dollar commitment to Vasquez and Buck, such was the temptation of the stench. The dinger-driven offensive burp of the preceding couple of games was nowhere to be seen; the Feesh probably figured that if they were gonna lose anyway, why not just expend the energy necessary to score one run and achieve a liminal respectability than wear themselves out scoring three more and miring themselves in that gambit again.

And speaking of toilets – which are full of water, Craig, and as such might equivocate to the Feesh equivalent of way a guy twists and turns to make the haystack when his parachute Roman candles – Steve Kilbey of the great Australian rock band, the Church, noted last year during the band’s twenty-five year anniversary tour of the Great Satan that the water in their hotel womb toilets was swirling the wrong way, as Kilbey plaintively put it, “no matter wha’ ye do.” Just so. The rumblings being heard on local Tawk Raydio (that’s how the callers would spell it, being morons even if English were their first language) calling for the therapeutic immolation of the manager – a lot of them are confusing Edwin Rodriguez with Eric Spoelstra – are further indications of how thickly despair has settled in down here.

All two or three hundred Feesh fans are gasping in horror at the sight of the Mutts, a mere half game behind them, rising up beneath the attractor looking like a largemouth bass to a dragonfly that flew too low. BC, your moment of vindication is upon you. I recommend some duct tape rolled around your fingers, sticky side out, to get it off.

Good to see that Big Papi has managed to speed up his bat speed in his mid-30’s- especially conisdering he couldn’t catch up with a fastball a year and a half ago. I heard that usually increases with age though. Nothing wrong there.

Here in the Bay Area, as rain has finally left the forecast behind and our god-given right to 72 degrees, sun, and low humidity has been reestablished for the next 5 months, the beloved A’s limp back to the Mausoleum, having been spanked 1-9 on this road trip, 1-12 overall from their last 13 games.

Strange Attractor? That’s a mythical line in the in the standings that only the A’s announcers talk about.

The few dozen remaining A’s fans will be watching the coming A’s Royals series very closely this week. The A’s rest day today allows them to throw their remaining decent pitchers at the Royals, who are riding a wave of Gordon/Hosmer/Moutsakis optimism.

As for the game yesterday in Chicago. Adam Dunn is the price of offense these days. $ 14M per year, and the ball he hit off Moscoso was presaged by his warning track shot his first time at bat. So why throw the exact same pitch in the exact same spot? Well, when you have no command, you just throw it up there and pray. Moscoso’s ERA is still better than last year’s emergency starter, Vin Mazzarro, who is now with the aforementioned Royals, but isn’t scheduled to start against the A’s.

Of course, we have to mention the 4 A’s errors in the last two games. At 27th in the league, their fielding is right in line with their offense. Sizemore’s error was roundly criticized by Fosse, as well it should have been, even allowing for him attempting to learn the position while playing it.

Wouldn’t it be nice is baseball teams could be “twinned” with other baseball teams on the other side of the continental plate, you know, the way, say, Cleveland is twinned with Sendai? Then the little bronze plaque set in the igneous schist obelisk (giggle) in front of Joeprodolsharkstadium could read “twinned with the San Jose As” instead of “This public edifice was erected for the City of Macondo by XXXXXXXXX, whose mere existence has been effaced by the exigencies of corporate sponsorship.”